


The Sum of Misunderstandings

by TheAvengersMascot



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: norsekink, Featuring: Always known he was adopted Loki, Gen, Loki Needs a Hug, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Pre-Thor (2011), Quite Literally, Ragnarok!Loki was right, Some actual neglect, but mostly unintentional neglect, open communication was never the family's forte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-03-27 06:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13875444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAvengersMascot/pseuds/TheAvengersMascot
Summary: To Loki it was just a fact of his existence, like the colour of his eyes or the fact that he was right-handed. His brother, Thor, was the favourite, and he was not. It was the most basic of equations, one that he had worked out while still a child.Which was why when he said so during a private dinner with his parents in response to the news that his brother was soon to be crowned king, he was not prepared for the utter shock that registered on both their faces.





	The Sum of Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note:** _Just in case you missed it in the tags, this Loki has always known who and what he is. I felt like adding in the Jotun reveal to what else is going on in this fic would just muddy the water a little too much._
> 
> Based on this [norsekink prompt.](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/12008.html?thread=28935400#t28935400)

To Loki it was just a fact of his existence, like the colour of his eyes or the fact that he was right-handed. His brother, Thor, was the favourite, and he was not. It was the most basic of equations, one that he had worked out while still a child. He couldn't say he was at peace with the fact—it did bother him—but he had accepted it long ago because it was simply the way things were.

Which was why when he said so during a private dinner with his parents in response to the news that his brother was soon to be crowned king, he was not prepared for the utter shock that registered on both their faces. His father, a man of legendary temper, was uncharacteristically quiet, almost hesitant, as he asked Loki to explain what he meant. Perplexed by their reaction though he was, Loki gave an example.

"When Thor and I were young, you were always so easy with your affection for him. You—both of you—were always ready with an embrace or a kiss or simply to hold him. At one time I was foolish enough to expect the same from you but I never got it. I was always the one reaching for you, never the opposite. Sometimes I even saw you recoil from my touch before you managed to hide your discomfort. Well, you didn't so much hide it as try to hide it. Ineptly, if even my child self could see the truth. I tried to earn the affection you so freely bestowed on your other son but eventually I understood that I wasn't doing anything wrong. _I_ was wrong. I was the problem. So I decided that if my touch was so repellent I would no longer inflict it upon you."

Loki expected several possible reactions to that. He thought his parents might deny their actions or dismiss his perception of them. At worst, he thought they might be angry that he called out their obvious favouritism.

He did not expect to see his father's shock give way to grief, his face crumpling as though he was in pain. And that was nothing compared to the utter devastation on Frigga's face. The sight of it cut straight through Loki's cultivated indifference to his heart and he found himself stammering out an apology.

"I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Far from improving things, it only seemed to make them worse. Frigga broke down weeping, her chest heaving with great sobs. She jumped up from her chair and made her way around to his side of the table. Loki attempted to rise as well but only made it halfway before his mother reached him and threw her arms around him from the side with the same freeness he had thought was reserved only for his brother. Caught partway between sitting and standing, Loki could do little but stay that way while his mother clung to him in an awkward sideways hug. He cast a pleading look for help at his father. Odin too rose from his seat and came to Loki but he did much the same as Frigga, wrapping his arms around Loki from the other side.

The noise of his mother's weeping was loud enough that it drew the attention of the Einherjar stationed outside the family's dining room. One of them came in to investigate, stopping short at the sight of the All-Father, queen, and prince in their bizarre embrace. Despite both his arms being pinned to his sides by his parents, Loki managed to raise one hand high enough to wave the guard away.

Alone with his parents again, Loki did some tricky manoeuvring to guide the three of them away from the table and over to the lounge. Once they were all seated, Odin broke off his side of the embrace but didn't release him entirely, keeping Loki's hand grasped in his. On his other side, Frigga too let go of him while she alternated pressing her hand to her face or chest as she tried to compose herself. His father tried several times to speak only to be shushed by frantic hand waving from his mother.

The whole display was baffling to Loki. He may not have liked where he stood with his family but at least he understood his place and had done so from childhood. To suddenly be confronted with this—whatever 'this' was—made him feel completely unsure of his footing for the first time in a long while. He prided himself on being able to read any individual or situation but right now, he had absolutely no idea why his words had provoked such a strong reaction from the two of them.

After an eternity caught between his strangely distraught parents, Loki was more than a little relieved when his mother began to speak.

"My son," she said between sniffles. "You know how you came to us."

Loki nodded. "That was part of the problem, was it not? Thor is your true-born son and I am not."

That spurred another round of tears from his mother and a pang of guilt began to nag at Loki. He knew it was ridiculous that he should feel guilty for causing his parents pain when all he'd done was admit to the pain they caused him. Yet despite the sheer illogic of it, Loki felt worse and worse the longer he watched his mother cry. 

"It was part of the problem, but not in the way you think," she told him, somewhat composed again. "Your Jotun mother could not have been well-nourished when she carried you. She likely gave birth to you too soon as well. We don't know for how long you had been abandoned when your father found you but it may have been days. You were so ill from starvation that despite Eir's skill as a healer, we feared we would yet lose you. She kept you alive, but Loki," she paused as she brought her hand to his face, stroking her thumb across his cheek. "You were so small and so fragile that even a normal Aesir touch could break you. It was the hardest thing..." 

Frigga trailed off as tears filled her eyes once more. To Loki's surprise, he watched himself mirror her earlier gesture, reaching out with his free hand to wipe away the tears that escaped her eyes. She smiled in return and the guilty weight in Loki's chest eased a little.

"It was the hardest thing to watch you suffer and cry and be unable to comfort you beyond the slightest of touches. I wanted nothing more than to gather you in my arms and hold you as tight as I could, to give you every last bit of love you should have gotten from your blood-family but I didn't dare. Your body was so weak that any injury would have been too much for you to endure. It was terrifying even to hold you in my hands. We wanted to do so much for you but we just could not.

"You've grown strong, my son," Odin said. "But that took many years."

Frigga nodded, tears still shining in her eyes. "We treated you differently than your brother, but it was not because of a lack of love for you. We had no choice. If we had done with you all that we did with Thor, it could have killed you or left you with damage that no one could repair. The discomfort you thought you saw from us was not because of what or who you are, but because we were afraid for you. You had all the typical exuberance of a normal child but none of the normal Aesir resilience, not until you were older. We were so afraid of you getting hurt or of hurting you ourselves."

"Yet it seems we did anyway," his father added softly. "It just wasn't in the way we feared."

Though their story made some sense, Loki's first instinct was to disbelieve it. He had too many years of experience telling him that he was unwanted, perhaps even unloved by his own family to immediately accept he was wrong about them. However, while he was not quick to believe it, his parents' story did shine a different light on much of his life.

He could easily see how his child self, too young to understand his own differences and to interpret complex emotions, would mistake their reluctance to embrace him for being repulsed by his touch. He could understand how asking for a hug by throwing himself at his mother and father the same way his brother had would unnerve them after so much time where their responding in kind could have crushed his bones.

Other memories also took on an entirely different meaning. Loki remembered his parents discouraging Thor from playing with him when he was very young, something he later concluded meant they must have felt he would have some negative effect on their favoured son. But he also recalled that the only kind of play Thor wanted to engage in back then involved pretending to hunt or spar or do battle. In other words, the kind of play that would have resulted in severe injury for a child who was nowhere near as hearty as Thor. That they were both too young to be interested in more quiet activities and too young to be trusted that a quiet activity wouldn't turn into something more rambunctious was not really anyone's fault. Children are childish, after all, and not even the All-Father's power could change that. How was anyone to know that Loki would remember it all despite his young age and take the entirely wrong meaning from it?

Still, while his mother and father's story changed his perception of their actions when he was young, it did not explain why they continued holding back their affection once he'd grown strong enough to receive it, and he said as much to them.

Again, Frigga's face fell. Her voice filled with sadness and regret, she said, "I'm so sorry, Loki. We didn't want to hold back, but we thought that was what you wanted."

That confused him at first. Why would they think it was what he wanted when he'd done everything to show them otherwise as a child? A moment later, the obvious answer struck him. Loki was not the only one who made a wrong assumption. Just as he assumed their lack of physical affection meant a general lack of affection for him, they assumed that when he stopped seeking them out for affection that he was indicating a preference, that he no longer wanted any such thing. Perhaps they even assumed it was a quirk of his heritage, or that not receiving much physical attention as a babe left him unaccustomed to it once he was older. It was true that Odin and Frigga may have held themselves back with him a little too much for a little too long. However, Loki was the one who stopped reaching out at all. And since he'd never given voice to his feelings until now, how else were they to respond except to honour what they thought were his wishes?

Loki couldn't help but shake his head. All that time feeling lonely and unloved because one misunderstanding led to another and another and none of it had to happen. If only one of them had said something sooner.

What else were they wrong about, Loki wondered. What else hadn't they said to each other that they should?

"I think there may be more we should discuss," he said.

"As do I," Frigga agreed.

Loki was about to say something else when he noticed Odin was still holding his hand and had been throughout the entire conversation. He asked, "Are you ever going to let go of that?"

His father looked down at their hands and smiled. "Perhaps in a few centuries."

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a few things I should say. Primarily, to anyone who has been kind enough to follow my other stories and is disappointed that this isn't the next chapter of _A House Divided_ or a new instalment of the _With a Broken Heart_ series, I want to assure you that neither one has been abandoned. Real life has kept me busy enough that I haven't had much time to write and when I do, I don't have the energy. I'm trying to do better with time management so I can get back into writing again because I have missed it but time isn't the only issue. Being away for so long really took a toll on both my motivation to write and my confidence in my writing. I wanted something to help me get back on the horse again and I felt like writing something simple and self-contained (and actually short for once) would help to do that, hence this fill. I will be getting back to my other stories and hopefully some new ones as well but in the meantime, thanks for reading this and thank you for your patience over the last few months. As always, I'd love to hear what you think. You can leave comments here or over on [my tumblr.](theclassicblunders.tumblr.com)


End file.
